DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

The b option controls bell volume, pitch and
duration. This option accepts up to three numerical
parameters, a preceding dash(-), or a ’on/off’
flag. If no parameters are given, or the ’on’
flag is used, the system defaults will be used. If the dash
or ’off’ are given, the bell will be turned off.
If only one numerical parameter is given, the bell volume
will be set to that value, as a percentage of its maximum.
Likewise, the second numerical parameter specifies the bell
pitch, in hertz, and the third numerical parameter specifies
the duration in milliseconds. Note that not all hardware can
vary the bell characteristics. The X server will set the
characteristics of the bell as closely as it can to the
user’s specifications.

bc

The bc option controls bug compatibility
mode in the server, if possible; a preceding dash(-)
disables the mode, otherwise the mode is enabled. Various
pre-R4 clients pass illegal values in some protocol
requests, and pre-R4 servers did not correctly generate
errors in these cases. Such clients, when run against an R4
server, will terminate abnormally or otherwise fail to
operate correctly. Bug compatibility mode explicitly
reintroduces certain bugs into the X server, so that many
such clients can still be run. This mode should be used with
care; new application development should be done with this
mode disabled. The server must support the
MIT-SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD protocol extension in order for this
option to work.

c

The c option controls key click. This option can
take an optional value, a preceding dash(-), or an
’on/off’ flag. If no parameter or the
’on’ flag is given, the system defaults will be
used. If the dash or ’off’ flag is used,
keyclick will be disabled. If a value from 0 to 100 is
given, it is used to indicate volume, as a percentage of the
maximum. The X server will set the volume to the nearest
value that the hardware can support.

−dpms

The −dpms option disables DPMS (Energy
Star) features.

+dpms

The +dpms option enables DPMS (Energy Star)
features.

dpmsflags...

The dpms option allows
the DPMS (Energy Star) parameters to be set. The option can
take up to three numerical values, or the
‘force’ flag followed by a DPMS state. The
‘force’ flags forces the server to immediately
switch to the DPMS state specified. The DPMS state can be
one of ‘standby’, ‘suspend’,
‘off’, or ‘on’. When numerical
values are given, they set the inactivity period (in units
of seconds) before the three modes are activated. The first
value given is for the ‘standby’ mode, the
second is for the ‘suspend’ mode, and the third
is for the ‘off’ mode. Setting these values
implicitly enables the DPMS features. A value of zero
disables a particular mode.

fp=path,...

The fp= sets the font
path to the entries given in the path argument. The entries
are interpreted by the server, not by the client. Typically
they are directory names or font server names, but the
interpretation is server-dependent.

fp default

The default argument
causes the font path to be reset to the server’s
default.

fp rehash

The rehash argument
resets the font path to its current value, causing the
server to reread the font databases in the current font
path. This is generally only used when adding new fonts to a
font directory (after running mkfontdir to recreate
the font database).

−fp or
fp−

The −fp and
fp− options remove elements from the current
font path. They must be followed by a comma-separated list
of entries.

+fp or fp+

This +fp and fp+
options prepend and append elements to the current font
path, respectively. They must be followed by a
comma-separated list of entries.

led

The led option controls the keyboard LEDs. This
controls the turning on or off of one or all of the LEDs. It
accepts an optional integer, a preceding dash(-) or an
’on/off’ flag. If no parameter or the
’on’ flag is given, all LEDs are turned on. If a
preceding dash or the flag ’off’ is given, all
LEDs are turned off. If a value between 1 and 32 is given,
that LED will be turned on or off depending on the existence
of a preceding dash. ‘‘xset led 3’’
would turn led #3 on. ‘‘xset -led
3’’ would turn it off. The particular LED values
may refer to different LEDs on different hardware. If the X
server supports the XKEYBOARD (XKB) extension, leds may be
referenced by the XKB indicator name by specifying the
‘named’ keyword and the indicator name. For
example, to turn on the Scroll Lock LED:

xset led named
"Scroll Lock"

mouse

The m option controls the
mouse parameters; it may be abbreviated to ’m’.
Of course, it applies to most pointing devices, not just
mice. The parameters for the pointing device are
‘acceleration’ and ‘threshold’. The
acceleration can be specified as an integer, or as a simple
fraction. Threshold is just an integer. The setting is
applied to all connected pointing devices. xinput(1) should
be used if you need device-specific settings.

By default the
pointer (the on-screen representation of the pointing
device) will go ‘acceleration’ times as fast
when the device travels more than ‘threshold’
mickeys (i.e. would-be pixels) in 10 ms, including a small
transition range. This way, the pointing device can be used
for precise alignment when it is moved slowly, yet it can be
set to travel across the screen in a flick of the wrist when
desired. One or both parameters for the m option can
be omitted, but if only one is given, it will be interpreted
as the acceleration. If no parameters or the flag
’default’ is used, the system defaults will be
set.

If the
‘threshold’ parameter is provided and 0, the
‘acceleration’ parameter will be used in the
exponent of a more natural and continuous formula, giving
precise control for slow motion but big reach for fast
motion, and a progressive transition for motions in between.
Recommended ‘acceleration’ value in this case is
3/2 to 3, but not limited to that range.

In the X.org X
Server 1.6 and above, the behaviour described so far is
linked to the default profile. There are other profiles
(i.e. functions determining pointer acceleration from device
velocity) and additional settings, so the above description
may not apply to non-default cases. In the X.org Server 1.7,
these are available as input device properties (see
xinput).

p

The p option controls
pixel color values. The parameters are the color map entry
number in decimal, and a color specification. The root
background colors may be changed on some servers by altering
the entries for BlackPixel and WhitePixel. Although these
are often 0 and 1, they need not be. Also, a server may
choose to allocate those colors privately, in which case an
error will be generated. The map entry must not be a
read-only color, or an error will result.

r

The r option controls the autorepeat. Invoking
with "-r", or
"r off", will disable autorepeat,
whereas "r", or
"r on" will enable autorepeat.
Following the "-r" or "r"
option with an integer keycode between 0 and 255 will
disable or enable autorepeat on that key respectively, but
only if it makes sense for the particular keycode. Keycodes
below 8 are not typically valid for this command. Example:
"xset -r 10" will disable
autorepeat for the "1" key on the top row of an
IBM PC keyboard.

If the server
supports the XFree86-Misc extension, or the XKB extension,
then a parameter of ’rate’ is accepted and
should be followed by zero, one or two numeric values. The
first specifies the delay before autorepeat starts and the
second specifies the repeat rate. In the case that the
server supports the XKB extension, the delay is the number
of milliseconds before autorepeat starts, and the rate is
the number of repeats per second. If the rate or delay is
not given, it will be set to the default value.

s

The s option lets you set
the screen saver parameters. This option accepts up to two
numerical parameters, a ’blank/noblank’ flag, an
’expose/noexpose’ flag, an ’on/off’
flag, an ’activate/reset’ flag, or the
’default’ flag. If no parameters or the
’default’ flag is used, the system will be set
to its default screen saver characteristics. The
’on/off’ flags simply turn the screen saver
functions on or off. The ’activate’ flag forces
activation of screen saver even if the screen saver had been
turned off. The ’reset’ flag forces deactivation
of screen saver if it is active. The ’blank’
flag sets the preference to blank the video (if the hardware
can do so) rather than display a background pattern, while
’noblank’ sets the preference to display a
pattern rather than blank the video. The
’expose’ flag sets the preference to allow
window exposures (the server can freely discard window
contents), while ’noexpose’ sets the preference
to disable screen saver unless the server can regenerate the
screens without causing exposure events. The length and
period parameters for the screen saver function determines
how long the server must be inactive for screen saving to
activate, and the period to change the background pattern to
avoid burn in. The arguments are specified in seconds. If
only one numerical parameter is given, it will be used for
the length.

q

The q option gives you information on the current
settings.

These settings
will be reset to default values when you log out.

Note that not
all X implementations are guaranteed to honor all of these
options.